HarmlessRabbit

(First off, while this happens to be a republican group conducting the questionable behavior, I have no doubt that democrats do the same. If anyone in this thread tries to troll the thread with any mention of "those (liberals, conservatives, republicans, democrats)", I suggest you ignore them. I certainly will.)

Really interesting story here:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/002131.html

In summary, a shadowy group in Kentucky is calling on extra volunteers to watch the polls in primarily black areas. Their reason?
The idea is to watch democratically dominated poll sites extra closely, thus excluding or intimidating people from voting.

The letter itself is here:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/kentucky.gov.pdf

I know we all like to think that vote rigging is a thing of the past. I know when I hear stories about corrupt elections in some third-world country, my first thought is "i'm glad that doesn't happen here." But, as you can see here, blatant vote manipulation still goes on right here in the USA.

And that's really my statement on the story. We often thing that the USA is some shining example of a perfect democracy, but we have our own problems. On the other hand, I'm very thankful for a free press, freedom of speech, and the right of some random weblogger to find and post stuff like this without being thrown in jail.

Tman144

I read a while back that some of the regions in California that were using voting machines made by the same company were giving weird results. Like some of those fringe candidates getting 85% of their votes in counties that had almost never heard of them. It wouldn't have affected the outcome unless it was a really close race so it doesn't matter much, but still, maching rigging is a serious problem.

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chavos

time for UN election monitors?

someday, i hope to live in a nation whose federal government takes seriously the promise that all citizens will be treated equally before the law.

Food Eater Lad

You would think that vote manipulations were a thing of the past.

Ustwo

I fail to see the problem here. Democrats are long known for vote fraud (I live in Chicago) and they wanted more republicans to make sure the voting was honnest. They didn't trust the democrat poll workers.

How is this poll rigging?
How does this keep people from voting?
How baddly do you need to twist the facts to make it look like it?

Read the memo.

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HarmlessRabbit

Ustwo, I'm putting you on ignore now. Even when I try to promote a non-partisan, rational discussion on the board, you manage to somehow accuse me of twisting the facts. Had you read the article, you would see that the memo refers to committees that don't exist and meetings that didn't happen.

You're just a troll. I'm done with you.

Bye.

Food Eater Lad

Nice way to ignore his questions. I fail to see how he is trolling. I see you running away from honest questions.

Ustwo

Harmless just because you can't answer my questions doesn't make me a troll.

That memo was a joke, its NOT vote rigging in the LEAST.

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Food Eater Lad

I have read the memo and fail to see how getting republicans to watch the polls would in any way shape or form constitute voter rigging. Care to explain to me why you think it is Harmless Rabbit, of does askign this make me a troll too?

Ustwo

You see FEL he wanted to talk about 'vote rigging' and never mind that his example was about republicans, and was a VERY poor example, he just expected us to just swallow it and talk about it.

If he wanted a debate on vote fraud without politics he should have found a real example of it, and better yet found examples of both parties doing it, or just written some original text of his own about his own thoughts on it without bringing in a party. Being a known liberal on the board, he could have posted an example of democrat vote fraud, and thereby shown a genuine concern with the question.

Instead he posts something politically charged, blatantly false and expects us all to discuss his topic without mentioning the evil 'R and D words'.

Personally I don't think you can talk about vote fraud, rigging, and buying in this country without talking about the parties since their accused 'methods' are very different.

Republicans are accused of using the police to scare away black voters, and posting fliers about the vote date being changed or how you can't vote if you are on welfare.

Democrats tend to be accused of having illegals vote, bussing in bums with the promise of cigarettes if they vote, getting retarded people to fill out ballots, and outright fraud at the polls (which btw is what that memo was all about).

How he expected people to NOT mention parties BUT discuss this is beyond me. What would we say, vote fraud is bad? Don't stuff the ballot box? Yea it sucks?

I’m sorry but if your main example is so badly flawed you can’t expect people to only play by your rules.

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JamesS

If you all are concerned about vote rigging in the 21st century, you should familiarize yourselves with companies like Diebold.

They make controversial ballot counting machines that leave little verifiable record of how people voted (allowing no chance to verify results independently). In some cases the code used in the machine's computers are not even being released for public verification.

There's your non-partisan threat to democracy, Harmless and Ustwo.

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Ustwo

Electronic voting machines scare me. Personally I like punch cards and I want a way to verify it was counted properly.

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

onetime2

Voter fraud is nothing new and unfortunately there is little anyone can do about it.

Both parties engage in it and it's reprehensible. Perhaps the best strategy to fight voter fraud is to increase the number of people voting thus diluting the ability of fraud to be a factor.

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eple

Yet another discussion turned into a rampant troll-fest. Is anyone moderating these boards at all?

onetime2

Maybe a bit trollish, but is it wrong to disagree with the assesment that HR used to start the thread?

I ignored his assesment that sending poll watchers to insure only eligible voters can cast ballots is voter fraud. Both sides seem to be engaged in, at the very least, vote manipulation in this example. The Dems railing against oversight (to allow those who are ineligible to still vote because they will likely vote for the Dems) and the Republicans trying to eliminate votes that would likely be cast for their opponents.

Ustwo

NOTE: Asking people questions they don't want to answer or looking at a question from a different angle is not trolling.

Harmless was doing more trolling posting that laughable example then me pointing it out was by a long shot. Just because he wanted to seem 'unbiased' doesn't make it so.

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Sparhawk

Maybe if Republican politicians cared more about the plight of the poor and the black, they wouldn't have to be worried about them voting Democrat.

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"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."

onetime2

Can everyone please stick to the topic of voter fraud and leave the bickering in the other threads where it's already well established?

There is just as much fraud in the realm of Dems paying ministers to "get out the vote" as there is in Republicans sending poll watchers.

Ustwo

Yes we should give them more money and destroy the black family even more! The horror the liberals have created in the black community with the welfare state is one of the great tragedies of 20th century America. 70% of their babies are born out of wedlock, a black male is SEVEN times more likely to commit a murder, but hey they vote for democrats. Keeping them poor, ignorant, and dependent on public money while pretending to CARE just so they vote for you is disgusting. It never was this bad before liberals started to CARE .

BTW Sparhawk, your post was a troll, but I feel very strongly about it so I bit.

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Sparhawk

Yes, it was SO MUCH BETTER back when blacks couldn't use the same bathrooms and restaurants and buses.

It was SO MUCH BETTER back when they weren't allowed to vote.

It was SO MUCH BETTER when they were slaves, and only counted as 3/5's of a person!!!

Too bad liberals started to CARE , or we'd have blacks in chains where they belong!!!!!

Republican politicians do NOT care about black issues or problems, beyond saying "Pick yourselves up by your bootstraps." That mentality goes nowhere in trying to solve ingrained cultural problems that go back 400 years.

__________________
"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."

eple

Well, it certainly is nice that we can all agree that both parties are corrupt. If the undermining of democracy is enforced in equal amounts between ther partys, it should be fair.

Enough trolling from me.
It is a big threat to democracy when voting numbers cannot be trusted. To make sure no votes are "lost" should be a big priority for the government. If you cannot trust that your vote is counted, how is it possible to trust the system at all? I guess this is a problem everyone should be fighting, no matter what party you are supporting.

Where I live, all the votes are counted by local voulenteers, my dad usually contributes, so I hope there are no corruption going on :P.

Ustwo

Again, WHICH party desegregated the schools and freed the slaves?

Oh right those were LIBERAL republicans.

And Al Gore's own father led a filibuster against desegregation, but I'm SURE he would be a Republican today.

Johnson’s 'great society' was the start of the destruction of the black family, and something that democrat leaders have exploited to this day at the overall expensive of African Americans. I hope you are proud of the vote plantations, but I find them disgusting. The great lie is that democrats care about the black man. They only care how the black man votes.

Answer me why the black crime rate is so much higher, why the black single mother rate is so high, why the cycle of poverty is never broken?

Even those liberals who thought they were caring should wake up and see they did more harm then good, and have done more to hurt race relations then help.

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Sparhawk

They WERE liberal republicans. LOL

__________________
"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."

Food Eater Lad

And dont forget the Southern Democrats that founded and still run the KU KLUX KLAN. And please dont forget all the republican's that risked their careers fighting them. But that cant be, as everyone knows Rebublicans are racists.....

Sparhawk

You and Ustwo may not be racists, but you've allowed your party to be hijacked by racists, many in the form of former southern democrats or dixiecrats. I know several 'old school' republicans proudly carrying on Lincoln's tradition, but please face the modern world. You can't defend your party by pointing to policies that helped blacks 140 years ago when you are simultaneously arguing for policies that are detrimental to blacks today. When you do, you come off looking like a hypocrit.

__________________
"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."

seretogis

Such as?

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redravin40

Sparhawk

Just off the top of my head:

-affirmative action
-death penalty
-mandatory sentencing
-imbalance between drug laws aimed at black drug users and white drug users

But since we should try and stay on topic:

-continued vote rigging and voter intimidation

__________________
"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."

Ustwo

In order to stay on topic...

Give some examples of republican voter intimidation.

This should be good...

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Sparhawk

Take a look at the original post on this thread why dontcha...

__________________
"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."

Ustwo

Try reading the thread then. Tell me how thats voter 'intimidation'.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Food Eater Lad

Ask my black fiance if I am racist. And back on target, the republicans are hijacked by racists? Who? What polices are racists? Didnt you read the posts by Ustwo about the civil rights acts as instituted by rebublicans.

Let me ask you this, what specifically does the Democratic party do for blacks? Besides keep them poor and dependant on government assistance?

Dibbler

I'm trying to figure out why we need voting machines. I've been voting for the last 15 years and have never used one before. Actually, I've never seen one up close. We just use the sheet of paper that you find your candidate and fill in the little circle next to his/her name with a pencil. You turn it in and at the end of the day they feed them into a reader that tallies the vote. They must be accurate because they've been using the same machine on basic skills tests for decades in schools and I'm sure the SAT test is still graded this way. The system seems pretty infallable to me. Also, I've never seen anyone of any political affiliation standing anywhere near the polling center.

So in a nutshell, are you people in the rest of the country a bunch of idiots or what?!? Why is this EVER an issue?!?

reconmike

I fail to see how this is "vote rigging".

What I read rom this predominatly left site is that there will be people at the polls to assure that if someone votes they have the right to vote.

As recent press reports have noted, state Republicans plan to flood predominantly African-American precincts in western and central Louisville with poll watchers to challenge the eligibility of voters.

This is the exact wording pasted from that site,

So it seems to me that they are making sure everyone is eligible
to vote.

If it scares away criminals with warrants, or convicted felons who do not have the right to vote, so be it.

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